Exploring the REAL Reasons for Sequel Madness and Episodic Film

By Pastor James Harleman

“The franchise rights alone will make us rich beyond our wildest dreams.” - Peter Venkman, Ghostbusters

In a previous post, my compatriot in cinematic critique commented on the franchise glut and corollary lack of creativity in Hollywood. Some of the blame was assigned to a sequel heavy summer, or obvious serial films, plus a lack of creativity in the source material stemming from comic books to theme park rides. While not an opponent of blockbuster franchises or sequels myself (I’m not convinced that a shoe-string budget and a screenplay written by a waiter about people drinking coffee and smoking for two hours is somehow more “artistic” than Peter Jackson and the power of New Line Cinema) I DO find myself wondering why so much of Hollywood’s offerings have evolved into this form.

Elliot asked, “How much longer can Hollywood continue dragging on various series, sequels and franchises of former glory?” It was interesting, because a recent trip to PAX the Penny Arcade Expo, not the religious channel prompted a meditation on narrative that might suggest WHY Hollywood is dragging on so many series in the cinema. Looking to other successful forms, they’ve adopted other media traits to survive.

At one PAX panel, a writer was articulating the challenges of writing video game narratives. One thing he noted was that games were becoming more interesting to craft because writers were no longer looking at movies as their inspiration for style and format. They were finally exploring what the unique artistic medium would let them do, instead of relying on the template of a typical movie and simply adding a joystick. Even he wasn’t sure where this would truly or ultimately lead them, but was excited by the prospect. Though not a big gamer, I found myself fascinated as well.

Backing up to look at cinema, Hollywood has been in business since 1910, telling stories and entertaining the masses. Most films were traditionally self-contained stories, save for serials short films, from which we get the term cliffhanger that would precede the main feature and were generally regarded for children. Sometimes actors would reprise similar characters (Abbott and Costello, John Wayne, all the way up to the advent of James Bond) but the narrative arc in each film was predominantly self-contained.

Then came the home screen. Though available before the Second World War, television viewing skyrocketed after its conclusion. Most television followed a film format of self-contained episodes; programs were not ongoing save for soap operas, which were generally regarded for housewives. This predominance lasted through the 80s; in fact, most television shows I grew up with (The A-Team, Magnum P.I., Knight Rider, Murder She Wrote) changed the characters so rarely that almost any episode could be watched in any order. They were interchangeable. The same was true of most children’s fare, with the rare exceptions like Star Blazers and other imports from Japan.

Prime time soaps like Dallas, however, were emerging on the scene. The longer character arcs, and “what might happen next”, became water cooler conversation. Over in the movie world, George Lucas had patterned a successful trilogy after the old film serials, and sequels began to grow. The franchise and continuation templates had emerged, but television weekly, or in some cases daily has pushed it harder, faster, and further. (more…)

Written by Cinemagogue contributor Elliot Strong

My friend Elliot wrote an article for the Vox Pop and I wanted to post it here for commentary. While we don’t see eye-to-eye, in true Ebert/Roeper form I wanted to present another view on the current state of Hollywood affairs. Look for more from this guy in the future (as well as my counterpoint or rebuttal!)

Summer is officially behind us, and movie studios are looking back at their summer movie season wondering what went right or wrong. The last few years weren’t all that kind to the Hollywood film industry, with falling box office grosses and ballooning production costs; there’s been rumblings over whether or not the whole going-to-the-movies experience was going to be left in the past as DVD sales climbed, with home theater systems and HDTV.

However, the industry may have gotten its reprieve in the form of a record $4 billion haul over the summer of 2007. Bear in mind that this includes foreign box office receipts, which are becoming more and more vital to the studios’ bottom lines and that overall individual ticket sales are down in the US, meaning the increasing cost of movie tickets is directly contributing to the rising industry gross. With that in consideration, was this summer really a victory for Hollywood? And moreover, is financial success an indication that the movie industry is producing films that the public finds engaging and interesting?

Much discussion and print space has been dedicated to the sheer number of sequels released this summer. The list is vast: Spider-Man 3, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, The Bourne Ultimatum, Shrek the Third, Live Free or Die Hard, and the fifth Harry Potter movie, to name the big ones. It seemed like if a movie this summer wasn’t a sequel, then it was definitely the beginning of a franchise (see Transformers and its sequel-grubbing ending).

Most of the movies this summer were popular enough to be considered business successes, but there were notable flops and some budgets were large enough to raise the question of whether or not the domestic box office intake was enough. Enter Evan Almighty with the largest budget for any comedy ever made ($175 million), according to The Wall Street Journal. With an opening weekend of $31.2 million and an overall total not breaking the $100 million mark, it was enough of a disparity to officially qualify the sequel to Bruce Almighty as a box office bomb. Compare that to Transformers, with an estimated budget of $150 million and a domestic gross of over $308 million. Hard to imagine that a Michael Bay-directed action movie about robots attempting to blow each other up had a smaller budget than a comedy with Steve Carell and cavorting animals. Spider-Man 3 and the third Pirates movie had large enough budgets ($258 million and $300 million respectively according to The Internet Movie Database) to make the studios fret over whether or not they would really come out on top after all was said and done.

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A Review of “Resident Evil: Extinction” (R)

There is nothing new about the third installment
in the Resident Evil series… though, for avid readers of Cinemagogue, you know that’s not necessarily harsh criticism. Still, while the film is enjoyable for fans of the genre, even I was surprised how unabashedly it borrowed from the themes and style of other films, from Romero to Hitchcock. Knowing this wasn’t going to be winning any Oscars, I enjoyed the flick for what it was and even found it fun to nail the many influences on the film, with the same precision Milla’s character nails a zombie’s head to a trailer with an arrow.

In the first Resident Evil film, Alice (Jovovich) awoke without memory and struggled through an underground laboratory facing zombies, supercomputers, and the other problems caused by the diabolical Umbrella Corporation. In Resident Evil: Apocalypse, the virus had spread above ground through Raccoon City, and mutating Alice fought against time, more monsters, and Umbrella to help a small band of bystanders and police escape the doomed metropolis before a bomb dropped to “solve” the problem. Her body had been altered by the Corporation and she continued to manifest enhanced physical prowess and even mental powers. As “Extinction” begins, we see the problem in Raccoon City was not solved… and the earth has been overrun with zombified humanity. Only pockets of UN-undead remain.

All of the favorite paces from the former movies surface in this film, directed by Russell Mulcahy (who gave us the original Highlander - there can be only one). Alice fights zombie dogs, performs amazing aerial kicks… even the beginning and ending of this film finds her in a room exactly like the home she woke up in at the beginning of the first movie. The apocalyptic scenes then move beyond the franchise and evoke other imagery. The clothing and convoy of the remaining humans in the Nevada Desert evoke Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, and as they pull into a sandswept Vegas the tipped Statue of Liberty replica reminds us of Planet of the Apes. When a murder of virus-infected crows attack the defenseless men, women and children, it’s a bloody update of The Birds.

The most obvious influence, however, is George Romero’s third Zombie movie, Day of the Dead. Hordes of zombies crowding the fences surrounding a mostly subterranean Umbrella facility, are an unmistakable homage to that film; the Umbrella scientist’s plan to “domesticate” the zombies is borrowed nearly point for plot-point (though the results vary), and a plan to use a helicopter for escape is a classic Romero image. It also turns out that, unbeknownst to Alice, she holds the key for a cure, which is why Umbrella is after her yet again.

Mulcahy knows how to make a functional action picture. “Heroes” actress Ali Larter adds to the Resident Evil mythos as Claire Redfield, leading the band of disposable human extras through the wilderness in search of the promised land. When Alice runs across the convoy’s path, she is reunited with a former comrade-in-arms from Apocalypse, providing the dwindling humans with a glimmer of hope. Sadly, the protection Alice brings with her special powers is accompanied by escalated dangers. guaranteeing gunplay, fisticuffs, and a confrontation with the man who mutated her DNA. Like the other films, there is a resolution, but an open-ended opportunity for another sequel outbreak. My main complaint with the film is that Milla Jovovich’s face is digitally softened and smoothed in several scenes to the point of notable absurdity. She’s living in a desert apocalypse, guys. a couple age lines should be acceptable. Making your actress look digitally doughy doesn’t make her any prettier.

I’ve dealt with our modern-zombie fascination in text and audio reviews in the past, and will post more about it in coming weeks. I wonder what readers think about our morbid fascination with the shambling, mindless, walking dead, and why we seem to keep begging for more, like zombies moaning for brains. Comments welcome.